Pocket Casts makes its web participant and desktop apps usable with out a subscription

In a unusual newest occasion of a product turning into further cheap (fairly than moving full-speed in the opposite direction), the favored podcast service Pocket Casts no longer requires a subscription to entry its web participant and desktop apps. Although the premium tiers are nonetheless there for some paywalled choices, the one platforms the place you’ll’t listen completely free in the intervening time are smartwatches with out a paired cellphone — a definite section inside a definite section, if ever there was one.

Sooner than Tuesday’s announcement, you probably can listen completely free on the Pocket Casts Android and iOS apps, nonetheless its web participant and desktop apps required a premium subscription starting at $4 month-to-month or $40 yearly. Now, you’ll study in alongside together with your favorite podcasters in your Mac or PC with out paying a dime. Although you probably can already do that on free choices like Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube Music, Pocket Casts fanatics (along with some Engadget staffers) swear by its clear UI, silence trimming and voice boosting choices and queue administration.

Pocket Casts / App Retailer

The Automattic-owned service framed the switch as standing up for open podcasting that’s freely accessible to anyone, all over. “By making our Web Participant obtainable to all people, we’re reinforcing our notion that podcasts belong to the parents, not companies,” the mannequin wrote in its announcement publish.

That may be a noble sentiment — and one we’d wish to see further firms embrace. However once we be taught (perhaps a bit cynically) between the traces, YouTube launched ultimate month that it’s passed one billion monthly active podcast viewers, with third-party data showing that it’s the most popular podcast service throughout the US. When combined with Apple’s newest addition of a web player for its free podcast service, perhaps Pocket Casts realized it was limiting itself to a diminishing piece of the pie by paywalling each little factor nonetheless its mobile apps.

As a result of it stands, Pocket Casts hopes its subscription-gated choices will entice a few of us into throwing a few {dollars} its method. The Plus tier offers (deep inhale) a shuffle perform, bookmarks, the flexibleness to preselect chapters, 20GB of cloud storage, watchOS and Placed on OS apps (which you will nonetheless use completely free as long as the content material materials is streaming out of your cellphone) and totally different goodies like themes, icons and a yr of content material materials from Slumber Studios. Within the meantime, the Patron tier presents all that plus early entry to choices, 100GB of cloud storage, extra icons and, a really highly effective of all, a profile badge.

Pocket Casts Plus will set you once more $4 month-to-month or $40 yearly, whereas a Patron subscription costs $10 month-to-month or $100 yearly.

This textual content initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/leisure/streaming/pocket-casts-makes-its-web-player-and-desktop-apps-usable-without-a-subscription-193035046.html?src=rss

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